Toreros miss chances to stun Cougs in Provo

Offensive struggles, defensive errors hurt USD softball in three losses at BYU

Eric Boose / Sports Editor / The USD Vista

The Toreros could have stolen one, even two games from BYU last weekend, if they had played perfect softball. All three of the Cougars’ runs in game one came from USD errors, and the Toreros had a 3-1 lead early in game two. But perfection is difficult to achieve, and San Diego came up short as BYU swept the series to remain unbeaten in West Coast Conference play.

Both game one of Friday’s doubleheader and Saturday’s series finale were pitcher’s duels between USD’s redshirt sophomore Madison Earnshaw and BYU’s senior Autumn Moffat-Korth. Errors cost Earnshaw dearly in the first matchup, a 3-1 Cougar victory, and she couldn’t keep the hosts’ offense down forever in game three, the Toreros losing 3-0. On the other side, Moffat-Korth earned WCC pitcher of the week honors for her work over the weekend.

Game two, the second of Friday’s doubleheader, had the makings of a third pitcher’s duel early, but San Diego’s starter, first-year McKenna Braegelmann, left the game in the third inning, and BYU’s offense exploded after that, ending the game early thanks to the WCC’s run rule, carrying an eight-run lead into the fifth inning.

Despite the second game ending in a blowout, run-rule defeat, USD looked like they could have won both games on Friday. The Toreros’ offense took a while to get started in the opener, not registering a hit until the third inning, and only scoring their one run in the fifth; they almost kept the Cougs’ offense just as contained. Had they not committed their costly errors, head coach MJ Knighten believed her Toreros could have pulled off the upset.

“I do believe if those errors were cleaned up and those didn’t happen, that it wouldn’t be the way it was on the scoreboard,” Knighten said. “I think our errors really did dictate a lot of those moments … but I think we learned from that. We’ve got to be crisp on defense, especially if we’re not producing offensively, because our pitchers aren’t shutout pitchers. We have to be crisp so we can continue to put zeroes on the board for the other team, to hopefully give us a fighting chance on the offensive side.”

Earnshaw got BYU’s first two batters of the game out no problem, and while first-year outfielder Violet Zavodnik got to second after an infield single and a stolen base, Earnshaw induced a ground ball to her second baseman, redshirt sophomore Rion Simms. But Simms bobbled the ball, and instead of throwing to first for what might have been the third out of the inning, she threw home to stop Zavodnik from scoring. The throw wasn’t good enough, and BYU got their first run. 

They almost had more that inning. Earnshaw loaded the bases, giving up a single and a hit-by-pitch before San Diego finally recorded the third out of the inning. Earnshaw’s second inning of work was trouble-free, but in the third, another two-out error cost the Toreros. 

The Cougars’ designated player, sophomore Huntyr Ava, got to second on an error, this time an errant throw to first by first-year third baseman Sofia Delgado. What would have been the third out turned into a runner on second with the red-hot bat of BYU third baseman Martha Epenesa at the plate. Two days earlier, Epenesa hit a walk-off home run against the Cougars’ arch-rivals, Utah. With a runner on base, she launched another one, putting the ball over the fence in left center, and putting the home team further ahead. 

Epenesa’s two-run blast would be the hosts’ last runs of game one, but they were far from done hitting homers. BYU hit four of them in game two to run away with the victory. But unlike in the opening game — where the home team took the lead early and kept it — it was the visiting Toreros who scored first in game two. 

First-year outfielder Malia Benson led off the game by earning a walk after a lengthy 14-pitch at-bat, and Simms laid down a sacrifice bunt to get Benson into scoring position at second base. That meant redshirt sophomore first baseman Sofia Bjerk’s base hit was enough to bring Benson around and give San Diego a 1-0 lead. 

BYU leveled the game right back up through a lead-off homer by senior outfielder Rylee Jensen and almost took the lead in the second inning thanks to a USD error putting a runner on third. But Braegelmann got out of the inning, and the Toreros were the next to score. First-year shortstop Amanda Limon led off the top of the third with a single to right field, and while Benson’s ground ball to third was the perfect setup for a double play, BYU couldn’t turn it, and USD got runners on first and second with nobody out. 

Simms was up next, and while she struck out, the strike-three pitch got away from the Cougars’ catcher, allowing Limon and Benson to move up to second and third with Bjerk at the plate. The Toreros’ first baseman hit a fly ball to left field which not only dropped, but bounced over the head of BYU’s left fielder, allowing Limon and Benson to score easily as Bjerk trotted into second with a two-RBI double. 

With USD up 3-1, Jensen led off the Cougars’ half of the third inning with her second home run of the game to bring BYU back within one. Despite only giving up the two runs, that was the end of Braegelmann’s evening, as redshirt first year Courtney Rose came in to relieve her. Rose only ran into trouble. She gave up three runs with two outs in the third, then a three-run homer to Zavodnik in the bottom of the fourth as BYU blew the game wide open. 

Still, Knighten said after the game that she did not regret her decision to replace Braegelmann with Rose.

“We decided to take (Braegelmann) out of the game because we saw that she was getting a little fatigued and mentally rattled a little bit,” Knighten said. “We went with Courtney Rose, who is a different kind of look than McKenna, who is an up-ball pitcher, and Courtney is a down-ball pitcher with a really good off-speed, so we decided to do that to keep them on their toes … I felt like it was the right decision to make, and you know what, we didn’t get the result that we wanted from it, but we’ve done that many times and it has helped us before.”

First year Katlin Entrup replaced Rose after Zavodnik’s long ball, only to give up a two-run homer of her own to Epenesa, who took home WCC player of the week honors for her performance at the plate. The Cougars almost launched a third home run in the inning, but the ball hit the top of the wall and stayed in play, meaning junior shortstop Marissa Chavez had to settle for a triple. Chavez would come home to score by the end of the inning, putting the hosts up 11-3 and meaning the top of the fifth inning would be USD’s last at-bats of the game unless they scored a run. Benson led off the top of the fifth with a double to left field, but the next three Toreros went down in order and the game was over after only five innings.

Saturday’s series finale was closer, but not competitive. The Toreros only put a runner in scoring position twice across seven innings, both times with two outs already on the board, making it harder to bring that runner home. But had the offense been able to put something together, Earnshaw was keeping the Cougars well within reach. 

BYU scored a run in the first, but didn’t add their second and third until the sixth inning, their final inning at the plate. The long dry spell in between was thanks to Earnshaw and the San Diego defense behind her. 

In the bottom of the fourth, USD’s aggressive defense kept the Cougs off the board. When Chavez laid down a sacrifice bunt attempt, the Toreros went for the tougher play to get the runner moving to second out, rather than Chavez. They made the play. Later that inning, with Chavez standing at third, and one out, Delgado fielded a routine ground ball. Throwing to first would have all but guaranteed the second out of the inning, at the expense of letting Chavez score. Delgado risked the throw home. It was in time, and Chavez was out. But Earnshaw walked the next batter, bringing Jensen to the plate with the bases loaded. Earnshaw got Jensen to ground out, escaping the jam and ending the inning. 

BYU finally broke through the Toreros’ defense in the sixth inning. A pair of singles put runners on first and second with two outs, and senior outfielder HannahJo Peterson’s double down the right field line brought them both home. Peterson was tagged out at third trying to stretch her double into a triple. The Cougars sat down San Diego, one, two, three in the top of the seventh to finish off the 3-0 win, and the series sweep. 

The losses drop the Toreros to 10-24 overall and 2-7 in conference, while BYU stretches its unbeaten streak to 16 straight games. Despite getting swept, Knighten looked to keep her team’s performance in perspective.

“Even throughout the whole season, with us getting losses, I look at Soph Delgado, I look at Amanda Limon, I look at McKenna [Braegelmann] and all those youngins and I say, ‘man, the future’s very promising,’” Knighten said. “You look at the scoreboard or you look at the final of the series, and you’re like, ‘man, we just got swept,’ but at the same time, just put it in that perspective that we have a lot of room to grow. The fact that we held on with a team for that long shows a lot of promise in the future.”

While the Cougars head to Los Angeles to take on second-in-conference LMU, the Toreros will return home this weekend for a three game series against fourth-place Santa Clara (3-6 in conference). The series begins with a doubleheader, starting Saturday, May 1 at noon.